Neighbours, everybody needs good Neighbours...!

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So much to see and so little time to do it in! Unfortunately Australia on this occasion was a fly by night (well in travelling terms anyway)visit..with time and cash running low we decided to get in an out as fast as we could whilst catching up with friends along the way.

Troy and Tawnie kindly put us up for our first week in Oz at their lovely house in Melbourne. It was great to catch up with them again. Thanks guys! We saw the sights of Melbourne, had a great dinner in St Kilders, saw some Aussie wildlife and got taken around the Yarra Valley vineyards..all good stuff! Not only that we were delighted to discover they live a 10mins drive from Ramsay street...so like true tourists we made our way through suburbia to hunt down those neighbours...well it would be rude not to! When we found it they filming, so we couldnt actually take a stroll up Ramsay st but we did get to see Paul Robinson (well from the back anyway....).

For our second week in Oz we got an overnight bus up to Sydney where we stayed at Manley Beach for the week. Although the hostel cost a fortune and wasnt even fit for the bed bugs there we were in a great location 2 mins from the beach and 40mins by ferry to Sydney harbour. We got to do some serious sunbathing, eat some good food and hook up with Renee, Tammy and Marie for drinks by the opera house as well as spend Christmas day on the beach. Christmas although very different was really nice and although we obviously missed our families we made the most of it with a picnic and a bottle of bubbly on the beach, enjoying the surf and sunshine.

From Sydney we got an overnight train to Brisbane to see Monisha, who we are also very grateful to for putting up with us for a week and taking us out and about!Thanks Mon! We had a tour of Brisvegas where my backside got to meet the local ants whilst we had a picnic ;o(, were welcomed by Monisha Aunt and Uncle for a barbie at Bribie Island and spent 4 days on the gold coast over the New Year at Monisha friend house with Mon, Danielle and Jo. Monisha and I decided we would be at the next Aussie surf championships after taking a surfing lesson (not sure we will get through through....). We spent New Years Eve drinking in the garden and heading to Surfers Paraise for midnight to watch the fireworks..all very Australian! Monisha then took us to her parents house (via the Bunya mountains) in the outback where they cooked us a great meal and supplied us with copius amounts of wine!

Leaving ourselves only 6 days to travel 1750km to Cairns we hired a car and to see as much of the East Coast as week could. We got to see Hervey Bay, Airley beach and treated oursleves to a night on Magnetic Island, making it to Cairns two days before flying out.

Cairns is a great little city and we were delighted to meet up with Clare and Gav (who we met in Bolivia) for a drunken night out, followed by a sobering bungee jump the next day (pics to follow later)!

Whilst in Oz we got to sample imitation marmite, learnt that 'thongs' are actually flip flops and not skimpy womens underwear, 'budgie smugglers' is a term used to refer to mens skimpy swimming briefs (and that they are very popular much to my horror!) and that 'Bogans' are the ozzie version of our 'chavs' We were sad to leave Oz having missed so much but at least it means there is so much more to see when we hopefully go back at somepoint in the not too distant future...

So with excitement and some intrepidation we are now preparing ourselves for the SE Asia leg of our tour. Let the true backpacking commence once more!

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Photos

At Christchurch airport 4:00am
on our way to Oz

Mt Dandenong, Melbourne
Tawnie and Tash at the top of Mount Dandenong

Seamus, Troy and Tawnie
Mount Dandenong, overlooking Melbourne

Filming Neighbours
We even got to see Paul Robinson!!